The benefits – and fears – of gentrification might slow as data show millennials look toward the suburbs, which could mean a future outflow.
Urban areas might have reached “peak millennial.” As housing costs stay high and youth unemployment lags behind the general unemployment rate, older millennials have looked toward lower-cost suburbs with economic opportunity. Urban NIMBYism and government restrictions that drive up rents have pushed away millennials.
Cities need to anticipate millennial decline from urban areas now, according to Citylab.
“From now on, there will be fewer young people moving into cities, because there will simply be fewer of them period,” Natalie Delgadillo writes.
Similar demographic pressures that led to a spike in new business formation and entrepreneurship among baby boomers, and now leave the American economy in a rut until millennials age, have influenced millennial city living.
As the next generation won’t be as populous as millennials, cities shouldn’t plan for recent growth rates as inevitable.
Dowell Myers, an urban planning professor at USC, told Citylab that making cities more affordable with more housing, cheaper childcare offerings, and supporting city amenities that already attract residents could keep millennials from fleeing for greener pastures.
Talk about peak millennial dates back to at least January 2015. Some of the concerns could be premature, but millennials might not have been in love with cities so much as in love with opportunity. That’s led to them delaying their move to the suburbs, but not rejecting it.
For mid-sized, affordable cities, that bodes well. Pittsburgh and Minneapolis are well-positioned for millennials who want low housing costs and economic growth. For cities looking to revive themselves with young talent, they need to be mindful that the youth boom won’t last forever.
